<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Saccharine Nectar &amp; Bittersweet Almonds by skyywards</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25405081">Saccharine Nectar &amp; Bittersweet Almonds</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyywards/pseuds/skyywards'>skyywards</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sherlock (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Awkward Love Declarations, Constructive Criticism Always Welcome, F/M, First Kisses, Fluff, Poetic, Standalone One-Shots Unless Declared Otherwise, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Weird Way Of Writing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:13:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,546</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25405081</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyywards/pseuds/skyywards</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He laid eyes on her, and she was wild and she was free, and he knew that only a fool wouldn’t love her. And he is certainly no fool. He was doomed from the first moment on, wasn’t he?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Honey Ocean</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Looking into her eyes is a bit like falling. It’s a bit like the wind whizzing past his ears, blooming red with the cold air up on St. Barts’ rooftop. It’s a bit like his coat fluttering around his slender frame as he faces the ground, arms spread, embracing his fall, embracing his landing. Like washed upon the shore he laid on the pavement and he knew it would have broken her heart, too, had he for whatever reason not survived his fall. It’s not a very painful way of falling whenever he looks into her eyes, however. It’s not tear-stained and with shouts surrounding him, drowning all out except for a distant static buzzing in his ears as usual when he’s uncoordinated. That same static fills his ears whenever he falls into her eyes.</p>
<p>It’s hard to define her eye color in first place. Honey? Chestnut? Chocolate? Amber? A mix out of all, and depending on the amount of light, they can even look angelically golden. (Not that he believes in angels, but if they do exist, then he’s fairly sure that they’d have the same golden eyes as she does when the light hits her large, gentle orbs at just the right angle.) Her too-small mouth moves. Sherlock blinks, slowly at first, and then, like he only just remembered that he hasn’t blinked in approximately one minute, rapidly. “What?” He asks, and it sounds too loud to his own ears. “Sorry—what did you—“ She interrupts him. Not like she usually would. This is new. She’s kissing him, he realizes after a second. It feels odd. Not magical, or particularly wonderful. It’s not bad, but it feels a lot less spectacular than he’d imagined. (<em>Yuck</em>! He hasn’t imagined this, what is he thinking? He’s only ... comparing it to what he heard from others and—) Well, it feels exactly like a pair of lips should feel. How did it come to this again? Right. His mind reels and races and screeches to abrupt halts in short intervals as he categorizes every single new sensation and whether he likes it or not, entirely forgetting to reciprocate.</p>
<p>At some point, it could have been hours or only another second, Molly pulls away. Her cheeks are flaming red. (He’s never seen them like this. It looks <em>endearing</em>, he decides rather quickly, and feels something in his chest protest vehemently, pounding in his rib cage to draw attention to itself and yank that thought away from his mind.) “Ngh,” Sherlock manages intelligently, and Molly buries her face in her pale, petite hands, ashamed to the core. He drags a lungful of breath in and rather belatedly realizes that he should have possibly kissed her back to not give off the wrong message. It just took him so by surprise. He hasn’t expected her to do that. No, not Molly. Shy and awkward <em>Molly Hooper</em>, kissing him out of the blue? He wonders when exactly he lost his mind on the way here. How had he not seen it coming? “I’m so sorry,” she starts what he assumes to be the beginning of the end. “Don’t,” he somehow chokes out of his cobweb-clogged throat, and Molly looks up, eyes bloodshot and coated with glistening tears. (They were so pretty only moments ago. How can he get them to be beautiful again?) A quiet sob claws its way out of her throat, and she promptly tries to stifle it with her hand before it can escape, but he can hear it anyways.</p>
<p>She’s spiraling down further. He’s not sure why it got worse, what he contributed to things slowly escalating like this, but evidently, he ought to fix whatever he ought to fix. “I mean,” Sherlock tries, “don’t apologize, it’s a waste of breath and time for both of us.” Okay, that didn’t make it better at all. His mind gathers more information about her behavior, the way she quakes silently, the way she squeezes her eyes shut and he can practically hear her beg that the floor swallows her whole. “Molly,” he murmurs. She only shakes her head slightly, still cupping her mouth, still not looking at him. He shifts into charming mode and reaches for her with an albeit false, still very convincingly kind smile. “Molly, it’s okay. Look at me?” Sherlock pleads, brushing his knuckles against hers and gently encircling her wrist to tug her hand off her lips. (Still too small, but he’d still like them on his again. Too small doesn’t mean too bad. When being rejected all one’s life, one learns to lower one’s standards drastically. And Molly is far too good for him. After everything she did for him ... the bloody fall ... she saved his life in more ways than one. Truly, she saved him on many occasions. On how many nights did he plan to overdose and she called just to check in out of nowhere like she felt he’d do something stupid? On how many nights did she text him a little something to assure him he’s not alone, even if it was something incredibly minor like—like—Toby’s new fucking collar, what kind of dress she bought and which one he thinks looks better on her. She took to asking him for boyfriend advice once, much to his own surprise, considering that she only ever got herself boyfriends to get her mind off of him, so why would she ask him which guy to date if she could choose between two and—oh. Oh. She meant to make him jealous. Now that he thinks of it, her little trick worked. Clever Molly Hooper. She’s opening her eyes now. He snaps out of this area in his mind palace and finds himself in reality again.)</p>
<p>“Hello there,” Sherlock says, coaxingly, and tugs at the wrist he’s still holding, gently planting a kiss to her pulse point. She squints at him anxiously. She’s waiting for him to say more. Of course she’d expect a speech now. He sighs softly and leans in to peck her back, softly, lightly, barely even a brush of lips, slow and tender, lingering a second, then two, then three. When he pulls away, nothing but hope shines in her beautiful eyes. He finds himself falling into them again. “Mycroft used to tell me that caring is not an advantage,” he blurts out. Molly’s face falls a little. Panic rises to the surface, bubbling quietly. He feels anxiety creeping up his spine. When did the kind smile he faked turn genuine? “It might be true,” Sherlock adds. She’s visibly short on breath, holding onto the last molecules filling her lungs desperately. “But—he never mentioned that <em>it’s not voluntary</em>. I care. I don’t necessarily want to, but I do it anyways and it’s something I can’t control and that’s why it scared me and that’s why I avoid it.” That sentence came out fast and Molly is visibly holding her breath. Sherlock inhales deeply in turn, so deeply it would be enough for both of them. “And I care for <em>you</em>, Molly Hooper.”</p>
<p>Her eyes are soft and deep, honey and golden, welcoming, gentle and warm for a <em>long</em> time.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Moon And The Tide</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><strong>PROMPT OO1</strong>. “<em>would you be so kind as to fall in love with me?</em>”</p><p> </p><p>He’s beautiful in ways that she didn’t know someone could be until she met him. He’s a bit like the moon, ominous, mysterious. Bright, too, in his own unique way. The way his eyes shine when murder comes up in a topic is surely not of this Earth, is it? (Let’s put the mildly disturbing thought away: it’s obvious that murder should definitely not make anyone’s eyes light up. Then again, she’s not all innocent herself there, genuinely enjoying performing autopsies. It’s not ordinary in the least.) He shouldn’t be so attractive, someone so <em>rude</em> should absolutely not be so attractive. It’s dangerous. Everything about him is, now that she thinks of it. How can someone so dangerous have such a kind heart, deep down, and look so handsome? He’s already switched the topic again, now droning on about one of his latest experiments, something involving a harpoon, and she can barely stand looking at him, balancing his weight on the two back legs of the wooden chair he’s settled in, holding onto the table with one hand, the other waving around molecules of oxygen, gesturing, like he can pull whatever he’s describing from thin air by simply drawing shapes into nothingness.</p><p> </p><p>No, it’s truly not fair that he’s allowed to be so handsome. If he were less <em>human</em>, (it’s not like he doesn’t <em>try</em> to act like a machine, but she can see past that well-built façade, much to her own dismay, at times) it would be much easier to hate him, but even he is human enough for her most well-trained muscle to ache, where it’s caught pounding between her ribs, in sympathy. He’s lovely, really, and albeit the topics that really get him going and enthusiastic, eyes flashing with interest, are more than just a little alarming, she can’t find it in herself to shut him out and give him the proper boot, shooing him out of her life once and for all. (Even if she <em>did</em> manage to gather enough strength and courage to face him and tell him to get lost, to never speak to her again, someone like him isn’t someone you just forget like that. He’s called many things, she overheard many not-very-nice terms, but not even once did the word forgettable cross someone’s lips. And besides, he can’t swoop out of her life just as quickly as he swooped in, they work together, after all, and while he could certainly find himself a different pathologist if he tried hard enough, she would miss him, even though the feeling is likely to not be mutual.)</p><p> </p><p>“Enlighten me,” he says all of a sudden, and she realizes that he’s talking to her a second too late. A pang of panic strikes deep in her heart and she stammers, straightening up in her seat across from him and she stares, wide-eyed and confused. “You’re in thought,” he elaborates upon watching a mildly mortified expression start to spread over her face, though he rolls his eyes, and not in a fond way. “You have been for two minutes now. So, enlighten me. What occupies your mind so much that you’re not listening to me attentively and nodding along and throwing somewhat unhelpful and unnecessary commentary in as usual?” Oh, she could strike him right across his handsome face for that question. She glowers at him instead, her confusion quickly melting away into frustration. He only tilts his head to lean a perfectly sculpted, pale cheek into his palm. At least he stopped balancing around so dangerously, like a seven-year-old in class, bored to death, leaning against the table behind him, lurking, waiting for the teacher to call him out on it and tell him to sit down properly.</p><p> </p><p>“What, can’t you—deduce it, or, I don’t know, <em>read it out of my hand?</em>” She fires back, clenching up a fist. How can he polarize so quickly? How can he talk about his hobby with gleaming eyes one moment, and break her down even further the next? He’s ruthless—<em>never</em> rueful, <em>apologizing</em> doesn’t seem to fit into that <em>superior</em> brain of his anymore, and besides, where would it even fit if there <em>was</em> space for <em>trivial expectations society poses</em> in first place? Next to whatever kind of stupid cigarette brand says this and that about someone? “Well, I <em>can</em> read that you’re being quite defensive out of your hand right now, actually. Clenching your fist like tha—” She cuts him off this time. Enough. “Are you <em>incapable</em> of human emotions?”</p><p> </p><p>That seems to perplex him enough to stun him into silence for a relieving, freeing moment. She can hear the clock ticking once, twice. Then he answers. “Clearly not,” he sighs out, and now he <em>does</em> sound rueful, surprisingly enough. “Very evidently not. Though I wish I was, it would make lots of things far easier. Emotions are quite annoying, they tend to pose the biggest threat to my logical, rational thinking, it’s—” Again, she doesn’t let him finish his sentence. She knows where he’s going with this. It’s stupid, that train of thought. Repressing emotions to the extent that he does is unhealthy. They <em>both</em> know that. Maybe he found it <em>trivial</em> to remember that it’s unhealthy as well, like the goddamn solar system, who knows. “Then riddle me this,” she interrupts, and he looks up, annoyance flashing in his eyes for a split second, “why do you have no regard for other’s emotions when you have them yourself? You know what kind of pain you inflict upon others, you experienced it yourself, it’s very … likely, at least.”</p><p> </p><p>He leans forward, arms crossed on the table, and again, the clock ticks quietly. Only once before he answers this time. He’s recovering. “Would you be so kind as to slow your heart rate down, I’m not too keen on wheeling you to the hospital today, the drizzle outside is <em>quite</em> unpleasant—” She snaps right there. In that moment. In that precise moment. Enough is enough. And he had his fill of stomping around on other’s emotions for at least the next month. She lights up, and then darkens rapidly, a mixture of disgust and hatred, and oddly enough, she doesn’t understand it herself, longing, folding out on her face. “Would you be so kind as to stop being an <em>arse</em> and to start loving me?”</p><p> </p><p>Silence, after that. His face is devoid of any emotion, even the faintest hint of annoyance from previously melts away into sheer indifference. She, on the other hand, sucks in a panicked, sharp breath, gulps down the lungful of the same oxygen he was waving around merely, at most, two minutes before, and swallows thickly. He keeps looking ahead at her, visibly categorizing her reaction to her own outburst, analysing every last bit, rolling it back and forth and over and over in his head, plucking each muscle contraction of her face tightening apart, mentally looking at every shiver of emotion ghosting over her face, from all angles. It’s <em>horrible</em>, being under his intense gaze like that, and for a split second, her mind jumps to how he stares down into his microscope—no, not <em>his</em>, the one he borrows, from <em>her</em> lab—and she pities the molecules and pieces of dirt and dust he’s so enraptured with.</p><p> </p><p>And then he shifts in his seat, leaning back against it, fragile porcelain shoulder blades scrubbing against the harsh wooden back rest, only shielded by the pristinely white dress shirt. She’s pulled back to the uncomfortable situation she invoked rapidly, and averts her eyes, standing up, a demure look on her face, and goes to zip her bag and retrieve her coat. Silence, still, even as she pulls her jacket on. “I—I hope that the, um,” she stammers, nodding towards the small box she brought him, body parts for him to glare at and dissect instead of her and whatever other poor soul falls victim to his (verbal) dissections. “Help you,” she finishes, ironically help<em>lessly</em>, and just when she picks up her bag to sling it over her shoulder and flee the awfully silent flat, his low baritone fills the room, and she soaks it all up, sinks into the deep sound.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Molly</em>,” he says. She screws her eyes shut, hoping that if they’re closed tight enough, she’d never have to open them again. But fate wouldn’t have it. Now the storm comes, she didn’t use the silence before to run as far as she could, as fast as she could. He must be bubbling, pulsating, thrumming with the capacity of knowledge about all of her feelings now, after observing her thoroughly, he must be about to explode. The fear that runs down her spine in shaky shivers makes her wonder if this is how the people in Pompeii felt when they knew the volcano was going to erupt and pour its doom-bringing, scorching, ever-lasting brimstone over them. The chair moves, legs scraping along the floor as he gets up. Will he hit her? An errant thought, she forces it away. He hasn’t done any harm to people, never before, never physically. He fights the maniacs who harm people, he’s on the good side, he’s not going to hurt her. (<em>I may be on the side of the angels, but don’t think for one second that I am one of them.</em> She doesn’t know he said that. Even if she did, she’d know that he didn’t mean it in the way it may seem at first. He separates himself from <em>ordinary</em> people, from the <em>angels</em>. He’s not like ordinary people. And he’s no <em>angel</em>. Evidently not, no, but he’s not one of the <em>devils</em>, either.)</p><p> </p><p>Fingertips graze her elbow. She stills. <em>Vesuv. The taste of brimstone</em>. Nothing happens. He's grasping her forearm, lightly, more asking her to stay than forcing her.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry,” she whispers without looking at him, frozen in place. “Don’t be,” he answers, surprisingly light, easy, airy. “It’s good that you said it.”</p><p> </p><p>And then silence falls over them once more, and he presses his fingertips into her forearm, to urge her to turn and look at him, only for a heartbeat, and then two, maybe even goddamn three, she doesn’t know, her heart still won’t slow down, he was <em>right</em> as bloody <em>always </em>when he deduced that her heart rate increased, and to be honest, she still hopes she might just faint, fall unconscious right there, so she wouldn’t have to endure the situation any longer. Still, she does as he asks. He’s the moon, yes, and she’s the tide. When the moon calls, how could the tide ever <em>possibly</em> hope to resist? So she shifts and slowly shuffles to face him. But she doesn’t look at him, not really, instead staring at his ankle, at the lovely curve of his calf, the dip of the inside of his knee. He lets go of her forearm and lifts his hand to graze defiant and teacup-touch-warmed fingertips against her jaw, lift her chin up without actively grasping it.</p><p> </p><p>He, too, seems to be tigering around this, tiptoeing, finally sensible enough not to demand outright, and only suggest, his touch a gentle offer, a question unasked. She obeys. (Tide and the moon.)</p><p> </p><p>The first glimpse of his face is shocking, devastating. Cut out of marble, his razor-sharp cheekbones (<em>dangerous</em>) highlight the hollow of his cheeks, inky lashes casting spidery shadows across the faintly darker half-moons circling his eyes, and oh, his eyes. A kaleidoscope of emerald and cerulean, a faint shade of grey nestled around the irises, and they’re glittering in that same way they do when the word murder occurs. Michelangelo would have discarded all drafts had he laid eyes on him and he would have sculpted him instead, begged to touch those divine calves, find their shape, feel the muscle give way for greedy fingertips.</p><p> </p><p>He leans in, and it’s a <em>fragile</em> thing, tender and <em>awfully</em> careful, only a brush of lips together, like he’s afraid only breathing too harshly would shatter her into pieces, and then she’d be cutting crystal slipping through his hands. It’s unceremonious, and she doesn’t know why she expected kissing him to be much different from kissing anyone else, aside from the fact that her heart catches on fire and lights up her insides, makes her <em>glow</em> inside out. He doesn’t need to say it back, words matter interestingly little when compared to actions. “I try,” he whispers anyways, a hushed little something in the shadows of 221b Baker Street, a careful resignation, “to love you like you deserve to be loved, but I’m hardly a man fit and good enough to fulfil your expectations.”</p><p> </p><p>She remembers, then, that consuming oxygen is an important part of staying alive, and gathers another sharp lungful to make up for the one that he stole from her. “You’re just <em>fine</em> the way you <em>are</em>,” she tells him, and he looks at her with an expression that she can’t possibly define, and he probably can’t even define it himself, but considering that he hasn’t pulled away yet, it doesn’t seem to be one of the disdainful kind. “I just wish you were more sensible, and less <em>cruel</em>.” He tilts his head, thinks that over. “I don’t know how to be more sensible,” he says, not putting up any defence towards the <em>cruel</em> label that she attached to him, one more little package he has to carry.</p><p> </p><p>“I <em>try</em>,” he says, softer again, and goes to finally step back, pull his hand away, but she won’t let him slip out of her range now, so she steps after him, moon and the tide, and takes both his hands into hers, squeezes them tightly, and stands up, <em>en pointé</em>, and has just enough time to see him close his eyes, bracing himself to be devoured by the tide he called himself. “I <em>know</em>,” she whispers against his lips, the only warning he gets, before he’s pulled deep down under to drown in her love.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>